My husband and I did Summerfair last weekend, different mediums, booths etc. He had a decent show and I had a zero show. Since we are veterans (tho this was a first year at Summerfair, and probably the last), I won't whine, but when you see so much stuff on a stick going out, and virtually nothing else, it's not a happy sight. It was horribly hot and humid Fri and Sat, lovely on Sun and I think sales were good for low end things on Sun. It is a large, and quite confusing, layout, with lots of variety - in my opinion, way too much variety if one is striving to be a top quality show. There was an abundance of craft-level and not much art-level work. Several of the award winners told me they won't be back. What does that mean? It means, not enough sales. That's the bottom line. So, if you do lower end nice quality craft work, it's the show for you. If you are a high end anything, I would consider making other plans. I don't think the audience supports high end work.
Yep, I absolutely agree. Lots of the low-end things were very well done. But, I think when the show is overloaded with low price goods, it sends a message to those artists who are doing work that needs to be priced high, such as furniture makers, fabricated jewelry, certain kinds of pottery, etc. that they are doing the wrong show.
I did Summerfair, and had a very good show, I see it more a matter of price points rather than quality. I also perceive the heat altered the buying side of the brain, and held the $ back. My price points were 15-100. Bradley Cross
That's a good question then. Is it worth it to have the quality of the show suffer for filling it with low end crafts? If the intention, and or the mandate of the board, if there is one, is to have a high quality show, then make those choices that drive a high quality show. I have absolutely nothing against low end crafts, and certainly we are all subject to being compared, but eventually the really good people will stop applying to a show that doesn't hold to the standard they profess. There were artists there whose work was very fine, but who made very few sales. Why would they want to return to compete w/sos?
This year Summerfair went head to head with the Columbus Arts Festival (both Ohio shows), which certainly made artists have to make a choice. Summerfair has 300 artists, I believe. It is tough to put together a high quality event and at the same time fill all those spaces.
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